Parole

Mass murderer Richard Speck, sentenced to 1,200 years in prison for the rampage slayings of eight student nurses in 1966, was denied parole today by a unanimous vote of the Illinois Prisoner Review Board. The decision was announced in a brief written statement and came without explanation. Speck, 46, who has served 21 years in prison, previously has been denied parole five times by the 10-member board. His next hearing was set for September, 1990.

Re "Riches did not change habits," June 17 After reading the headline, I thought that Jose Luis Munoz had robbed a liquor store after receiving his $2.5-million settlement, when in fact he was given 16 months in prison for a technical parole violation: "associating with other gang members." In other words, he was returned to prison for hanging out with his old friends. Was former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby told not to associate with Republicans as a condition of his presidential pardon?

The Los Angeles City Council urged state officials Tuesday to reverse their decision to parole a crazed movie fan who nearly killed actress Theresa Saldana in a knife attack seven years ago. The council voted unanimously to support the motion of its president, John Ferraro, demanding reversal of the decision to free Scottish drifter Arthur Jackson on June 15. "If recourse to the courts and the Legislature is out, then an appeal to the parole...

When the Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that executing juveniles amounted to cruel and unusual punishment, the author of the majority opinion, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, made two convincing arguments: that juveniles are less capable of appreciating the consequences of their actions than are adults (something every parent knows) and that putting them to death violated "evolving standards of decency." On Monday the court, again in an opinion by Kennedy, rightly concluded that the same considerations make it unconstitutional to sentence minors to life in prison without the possibility of parole for offenses other than murder.

A paroled rapist of two teens, whose placement in a Mead Valley halfway house in May ignited months of protests by local residents, was returned to prison Wednesday for allegedly violating parole. Riverside County sheriff's investigators closely monitored David Allyn Dokich's movements around Mead Valley for two months and submitted information to the California Department of Corrections, authorities said.

County prosecutors said Monday they will not file misdemeanor narcotics charges against actor Robert Downey Jr. stemming from his arrest last month in Culver City. Instead, the district attorney's office will let state corrections officials deal with Downey for violating conditions of his parole, spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said. Downey, 36, is on parole from a 1996 drug conviction and has served about a year in prison after violating conditions of probation.

After more than eight years behind bars for murder, an ailing Jack Kevorkian will be paroled in June on a promise not to help anyone else commit suicide, prison officials said in Lansing. Corrections Department spokesman Russ Marlan said the parole board took the 78-year-old Kevorkian's declining health into consideration, along with the question of whether the former pathologist would be a danger to society.

Re "Is this paroled killer still a threat?" July 13 We are grateful for The Times' perceptive piece on the state Supreme Court case regarding the parole of Sandra Lawrence, which points to a striking irony in the current state government bureaucracy. California has a Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, but what does "rehabilitation" mean when the governor wants to deny parole to inmates who have taken every opportunity to demonstrate they have reformed? What else would Sandra Lawrence have had to do?

Sirhan Sirhan, serving a life prison term for assassinating U.S. Sen. Robert Kennedy in 1968, was denied parole Thursday for the 11th time for refusing to take responsibility for the shooting. Denise Schmidt, a spokeswoman for the state's Board of Prison Terms, said a three-member panel at Corcoran State Prison also cited Sirhan's poor psychiatric evaluations as a reason for the denial. Sirhan, 57, did not attend the hourlong hearing. "He was given a two-year denial," Schmidt said.